Thursday, 21 February 2013

The elephant in the Twitterverse

What keeps large corporations out of the social media space? Because the elephant in the room is -

C-Suite still doesn't believe there's any money to be made

If something goes viral, you lose control

And if it goes viral because you offend hundreds of thousands of people in the Twitterverse, heads will roll.

Well guess what - Canada's Financial Post is reporting that ING, the unmortgage financial powerhouse of the 1990s, has just had every corporations' worse nightmare occur.

Quoting "In early January 2013, ING Direct Canada put into market a new TV commercial to promote its RSP and TFSA products in advance of RSP season. The commercial depicted a clearly stressed out man who viewers soon discover was helped by his wife taking him to ING. It didn’t take long for consumers — who interpreted the ad as making light of symptoms often associated with mental illness — to voice their indignation through social media channels, including direct communication with ING Canada CEO Peter Aceto. The backlash forced the bank to decide whether to do away with the ads during a critical promotional period or sacrifice some of the brand equity it had earned among consumers by keeping the ads on air. "